Today's fortune: February 7, 2011

Today's fortune: You will soon be the center of attention.

The second thing that ran through my head when I opened today's fortune was, "Is this a good omen or a bad one?" Sometimes being the center of attention is not necessarily a good thing.

Just look at the long list of celebrities who wish they weren't on the cover of every tabloid, and whose most intimate family moments are broadcast for the world to see by TMZ and Perez Hilton.

In my own life, I've seen how being the center of attention can be a detriment. A wise man once told me the soldier who sticks his head over the edge of a foxhole is almost always the first one to lose it (his head, that is). Back on January 16 I wrote about ambition, and how I used my own ambitious nature to obtain a more high-profile job (at the detriment of my predecessor). I was fired from that high-profile job a few months later because I used my new platform to write a column. That column upset an advertiser, and who do you think the spineless publisher of the newspaper decided to support?

I'm also seeing how being the center of attention can be problematic at my current job. There's something to be said for mediocrity, really. I could coast along quite nicely at work, meeting but not exceeding any goals, and my pay, if not my job title, would gradually increase.

But I've never been one to do that. I'd rather roll the dice and aim at being one of the very best employees there. In the process, I might fail spectacularly - in which case being the center of attention would quite likely lead to my demise. But I might also succeed, and at a company like Acme, the sky's the limit for overachievers who are good at what they do.

Okay, okay, to end the suspense: the first thing I thought about when I read today's fortune was, "Oh my gosh! This is meant to be, because I'm gonna be on The Jay Thomas Show today!"

My interview with Mr. Thomas was a lot of fun, and hopefully it will make My Daily Fortune the center of attention. In fact, Jay predicted this was just the beginning. He was confident the blog would become much, much bigger.

I hope he's right.

I know I'm somewhere between 2 and 14 minutes in my 15 Minutes of Fame. What matters is how much is left, and how I'm able to use the attention for good.